Mining History: Digital Practices in Humanities Research

Instructor: Jessie Labov, Tamás Kiss, Marcell Sebők

Credits: 2.0

Course description: 

This course aims to introduce students to the basic debates and methodologies of the digital humanities (DH), and to think through how these approaches and methods might best be applied in their respective (historical or other humanities) projects and disciplines. After tracing how this interdisciplinary field has developed and some of its challenges and limitations, four of the main methodologies featured in DH will be discussed: text analysis, network analysis, mapping, and topic modeling. During these weeks of exploring the various approaches, students will also be working individually or in small groups, experimenting with their own datasets and areas of research. By the end of the course, each group will present and submit a DH research or project proposal, incorporating at least one methodology with a selected discipline and area of research.

Learning outcomes: 

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • identify the major areas of practice in the digital humanities
  • critically engage the role of DH in the future of the humanities
  • navigate more easily among DH methodologies and debates
  • envision a DH project that would enhance their own area of research
  • locate the relevant resources at CEU and online to carry out DH projects in the future